“Cabin Fever’s but a walking shadow by a poor director that struts and frets his hour-plus upon the screen and unfortunately is heard from again. It is a tale told by a fanboy, full of T & A and gore, signifying nothing.”
–Egregious Gurnow paraphrasing Billy S.
Simultaneously a throwback to the great 1970s and ’80s works of horror and an updating of the genre, Eli Roth’s debut feature-length film, Cabin Fever, misfires in both directions. As the black comedy largely undermines what little fear the director has created with his unseen antagonist, Roth lapses into rote stereotypical characters and plotlines as the effort culminates in sophomoric futility.
Immediately following finals, Paul (Rider Strong), Karen (Jordan Ladd), Bert (James DeBello), Marcy (Cerina Vincent), and Jeff (Joey Kern) travel to a secluded cabin they have rented under the ruse of a much needed vacation. A flesh-eating virus manifests itself among the group’s members as they attempt to find salvation before it is too late.
It is not as if Roth doesn’t know his horror. With both direct references and subtle allusions, both visual and aural, to such genre staples as Wes Craven’s The Last House on the Left, George Romero’s Night of the Living Dead and Dawn of the Dead, Tobe Hooper’s The Texas Chain Saw Massacre, David Lynch, John Carpenter’s The Thing, John Boorman’s Deliverance, and Sam Raimi’s Evil Dead series, one would think that the director and co-writer would have taken something of substance from his predecessors. Unfortunately, it appears as if Roth plagiarized the lesser copycat efforts which followed the masters of horror–to even lesser affect.
I have returned to Cabin Fever on three separate occasions attempting to ascertain why the film remains so well liked. After my second viewing I remained admittedly dumbfounded as to why Peter Jackson halted production three, count ’em three, times during the shooting of The Lord of the Rings in order to have his cast and crew watch the feature. However, I believe that, over the course of the passing year, I have finally found the answer: connections, amiability, and perpetual self-promotion.
Roth has worked for and befriended some high power individuals throughout his years in the industry. He labored as a research assistant to David Lynch and served under Howard Stern. He acted for Lloyd Kaufman. Quentin Tarantino would later take a whole half of a day to help polish some of the stifled dialogue in Roth’s follow-up to Cabin Fever, Hostel. One can readily imagine that his little black book of Hollywood Hook-Ups doesn’t end here because–amid a quintet of stock, cardboard characters, a flippant quip consummately inserted at all the wrong times, and a lack of focus–Cabin Fever would otherwise be inevitably doomed to failure lest there were some invisible helping hands urging and directing observer expectation and bias.
Granted, the theme of an unseen, indefensible menace seems initially promising (though hardly original) as it serves as the phantom stalker in an otherwise typecast slasher film where the environment itself is lethal. This is the avenue which I originally issued benefit of the doubt to the picture for the only manner in which I could fathom why Cabin Fever garnered and retains such a strong hold on audiences is via the fear of communicable disease in an AIDS-wary, SARS prone world. Yet, it is well-known that even with the greatest premise throughout the whole of the arts, if one fails to aptly execute such with at least a fair degree of success, the artist might as well have never set pen to paper.
Once you fail to successfully arouse apprehension after introducing your foe, it does help that those which are being plagued by the evil within happen to be cardboard cut-outs as we are tortured by the vestal good guy and his female counterpart whom must die because, as Poe reminds us, there is no greater tragedy than the death of a fair maiden. Then there’s the self-absorbed, ill-tempered counter to Mister Purity and his partner, the slut, all of which are topped off by the drunk goof-off solely included for arbitrary comic relief. The only deviation from the rigidly uninspired horror pattern under which Roth seems to be operating under is the postmodern nihilistic finale where not even the good guy makes it out alive. Sadly, this–and the basing of his film upon the real-life contagion, Necrotizing fasciitis–seem to be the only two instances of creativity Roth could muster during the whole of his feature.
Furthermore, only the end-of-the-world plight, alongside Cabin Fever’s score, houses potential. By giving us an apocalypse-in-progress, we readily anticipate how the ensuing plague will unfold after the feature closes as we think back to all of the instances and directions where the infection gained access. This–in conjunction with a score provided by Lynch collaborator, Angelo Badalamenti–are the only highlights in an otherwise dull and uninteresting affair where even the humor largely misses.
Indeed, Cabin Fever is supposed to serve as an examination as to how the various characters could have very readily solved their dilemma had they not been battling against one another. However, as predictable scenarios serve as segues to rote dialogue, Roth’s inane humor deadpans. To be honest, his brand of comedy is pitch-perfect for the likes of yet another Scary Movie but, obviously, the parodying of horror is the antithesis of its source material. As such, we are guests to what would be the equivalent to watching someone attempt to paint a wall with paint remover. For example, during the last quarter of the feature, when the tension has been created and is–in order to achieve optimum effect–supposed to be in its unabated ascension (this is not cinematic formula mind you, rather the road by which the psychology of fright is paved), Roth head-slappingly pauses to insert an joke wherein a automobile accident with a deer results in the animal’s undulating legs honking the horn of the maimed truck. Ignoring the moot jibe where the deputy takes a swig from a bottle while driving is probably in our best interest . . . .
Eli Roth’s Cabin Fever does achieve one of its goals: It aides in ringing in a new forum for twenty-first century horror as we are treated to a vicious, unrepentant vision of nihilistic apocalypse. However, he presents such without bothering to incite even the slight concern within his viewer as the film perpetually cancels out anything it posits as worthwhile in a matter of seconds. As dependable as what his clichéd characters will say or do next, Roth’s debut remains a sociological anomaly. Not to sound brusque, but if anyone can offer any ideas upon what makes the film so popular aside from its requisite gore and sex, don’t email me because under no circumstance barring ample amounts of duct tape and a cattle prod will I return to Cabin Fever a fourth time. Instead, pen your own review, it will be a better investment than the hour-and-a-half criminally taken from you in having watched this movie
-Egregious Gurnow
- Interview with J.R. Bookwalter - January 22, 2015
- Interview with Andrew J. Rausch - January 22, 2015
- Interview with Rick Popko and Dan West - January 22, 2015
- Interview with Director Stevan Mena (Malevolence) - January 22, 2015
- Interview with Screenwriter Jeffery Reddick (Day of the Dead 2007) - January 22, 2015
- Teleconference interview with Mick Garris (Masters of Horror) - January 22, 2015
- A Day at the Morgue with Corri English (Unrest) - January 22, 2015
- Interview with Writer/Director Nacho Cerda (The Abandoned, Aftermath) - January 22, 2015
- Interview with Actress Thora Birch (Dark Corners, The Hole, American Beauty) - January 22, 2015
- Interview with Actor Jason Behr, Plus Skinwalkers Press Coverage - January 22, 2015
